Nature vs Nurture? Is CDing genetic, or learned (or both!)

[becca78]

I really like this debate and have wondered about it at times myself.
I’ve read somewhere that it is all about how much hormones you are exposed to in the womb.

Let’s take a little survey. How many of you ladies out there have a ring finger that is longer than your index finger?

This is supposed to be an indicator to how much testosterone you are exposed to in the womb & apparently the majority of men have a ring finger that is longer than the index finger. I had never looked at the length of my fingers before but after reading this I found out I do have shorter ring finger than index finger.
The real funny thing about the report I read was it said that having a shorter ring finger will make you more emotional, better at literacy & creative design, Worse at maths & spatial awareness. While yes I am more emotional than most guys I am hopeless with writing & creative design but am absolute genius at maths & have good spatial awareness.
Go figure.
Rebecca

[shayleetv]

Becca your going to go crazy trying to put yourself into a theory someone has come up with. My whole life i have had been told this and that only to find out that this and that don't fit me. My ring finger and index finger on both hands are the same length. What does that mean? Am I neutral emotionally, no I cry at most anything that is tender. I am more emotional than any woman I know. No one is a perfect example of anything that man can conceive as why we are the way we are. I am influenced by nurturing and nature. How many little boys and girls get dressed as their opposite gender when in their formative years and never become crossdressers.I was dressed by mom and later by sis. Had a great time in Cub Scout skits dressed as a girl. Even was given my WEBELOS ceremony dressed as a girl. My mom was given some drug to keep her from miscarrying me that I later found inhibited the testosterone bath I should have gotten while in the womb. By some of the things I have read about the studies on the drug I should be more TS and less of just a crossdresser. But that is the way the cookie [theory] crumbles. I am what I am and need not put blame on anything or any where, I'm here enjoying the ride!

[Claire Cook]

I have just tried to catch up with everything in this thread. Wow, lots to think about. If there is any consensus here, it seems to be that both "Nature" and "Nurture" are involved, in various combinations. I'd bet that in no two of us are the combinations the same. So here is my take. One phenomenon that biologists are getting more and more interested in are what are called "epigenetic" effects -- things that occur during development that have long-term, perhaps permanent, effects on how genes are expressed -- but they are usually not inherited. These can affect nerve development and connections, among other things. So the possibility that exposure to estrogens or other influences in the womb can affect gender things is a real one -- and can give each of us a unique "Nature" (our genes plus any of these effects) that our life experiences ("Nurture") build on. It's really something medical science should be more interested in.

I believe it is nature and some nurture. We all start out female and based on the amount of estrogen we are exposed to during early gestation we may become males. My belief is that I was exposed to a level of estrogen that result in me being male but on the feminine side of that gender. Think of a number line and macho is at one end and girly girl is at the other. I'm on the girly girl side enough to want to express my gender identity by crossdressing. My belief.

Indeed.

Ooh, ooh! I did a term paper on this very subject! Let's see if I remember it right... it's not genetic or nurture, it's the hormones you're exposed to prenatally. So, in essence, you're born that way, but it's not genetic. Anyway, certain hormones, particularly stress hormones, can rewire random parts of the brain to be more like the opposite sex's. If the part of the brain that determines what sex you're attracted to gets rewired, you wind up bisexual or gay (depending on the level). If the part of the brain that controls speech gets rewired, you SOUND like you're gay, but may or may not be. If the majority of the brain gets rewired to the opposite sex, you're transexual. These hormones can also effect the body. Like, a lot of us LOOK more feminine than most guys. (and don't mind it one bit!) But virtually all of us are in the first category. Regular guys, made more feminine by our mother's hormones.

I think this very likely.

Personally I buy into the recent research concerning brain development showing that if the hormonal washes aren't accomplished properly in males, the brain is left with some parts unchanged from the initial feminine brainstem. That can leave a male with a brain arrangement across the spectrum from primarily female to almost completely male. As has been said, it's then up to the individual to act.

tina

I thnik this is what I am trying to say.

There are examples of twins where one brother is a crossdresser and the other not. These cases rule out the possibility that genetics or hormone washes as both have the same exposure. What we do know about twins is they always have unique personalities so they end up being as distinct a person as anyone else.

It is not environmental factors that create crossdressers but the interaction of unique personalities with the environment and the resulting feealelings produced from that process which then have to be aligned with social gender expectations.

This is really interesting. Perhaps someone has pointed out somewhere in this thread that in cases of identical twins, there is some probability that if one is gay, the other will be. But the odds are 50% or less, indicating that it is not a genetic effect, but possibly an epigenetic one related to hormonal or other effects in the womb -- that act differently in the two fetuses.

Clearly we need more information!

Thus endeth the lecture..

[CynthiaD]

I always feel a little uncomfortable about nature vs nurture debates because they focus on what " makes" us do certain things. I thing that virtually everything we do is a free choice.

On the other hand, CDing is much more than the act of putting on female clothing. First, there is the desire or inclination to crossdress, and then there is the willingness to yield to the desire. In that context, the question makes perfect sense. I can't answer the question in a generic sense, but I can give a partial answer for myself. My desire to CD comes from my admiration for women. I admire strength, and most of the truly strong people in my life have been women. Women's pursuits have always interested me more than men's. I like embroidery much more than playing sports. Dressing makes me feel just that much closer to something I admire.

As far as the willingness to yield to the inclination goes, I attribute that to courage and a spirit of adventure. I think that putting on a dress is one of the bravest things I've ever done. Some feel that dressing is yielding to a weakness, by I see it as the exact opposite. I hope these perspectives help.

CK

[SweetIonis]

My desire to CD comes from my admiration for women.

I know what I mean. I think that's a strong component for why I do it. There are other factors as well, but I think that's really the root of it at the end of the day.

[Pink Person]

Gender is a formal and functional characteristic. It’s descriptive, prescriptive, and subscriptive. It describes us, is prescribed for us, and we subscribe to our own personal versions of it. The prescriptive element of gender identification and behavior doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, it doesn’t even tell the most important part of the story. The combination of gender identification and behavior is primarily descriptive. It describes how we self-identify and want to be socially-identified. It describes how we self-direct our behavior and want it to be socially-directed.

I suppose it’s possible for a happy masculine boy to grow up to be an unhappy masculine man, but it isn’t clear why this would cause him to retreat into feminine behavior. If boyish or adolescent masculinity was satisfying then why not return to it or never leave it for gender identification and expression purposes? Furthermore, there are numerous ways to express mannish or adult masculinity. Why reject it categorically for a feminine identity and feminine behavior? If some masculine boys can become feminine as they mature, perhaps there are developmental reasons that deserve biological investigation. The social conditioning argument for this type of conversion seems pretty queer to me.

People who can’t recognize significant differences between and within groups of cisgender and transgender people are not very observant. Gender inequalities exist but they do not justify the creation of social inequalities.

[NathalieX66]

I was predispostioned to crossdress since I was 8 years old.....there was no pivotal moment that changed me. I wanted to dress as female , and fought it for nearly a lifetime.
No more.
I am what I am.